Six days ago, my dad was diagnosed with stage 4b gallbladder cancer, which had spread to his liver, both lungs and lymph system. Suddenly here I am at his bedside in palliative care, and he has a week or so to live. My dad is my best person. My best friend. We knew he was sick, very sick, but I couldn't get any help. The local GP didn't pick it up, he thought dad was just getting old, and suffering some mental decline due to his age. Possibly mild dementia symptoms. I started to panic a couple of weeks ago, when dad could no longer get out of bed and stand without major help. Mum on one side, me on the other. Desperately slow trip to the toilet with the walker, and dad so weak. I took him again to the GP, saying, PLEASE... you've never seen dad this sick before. There MUST be something else. Eventually mum thought of getting a blood test done. I got the referral then we went through the whole drama of getting him to and from the blood test. The poor bastard could barely sit up, let alone walk from the car into the pathology office. Anyway, the blood test (showing abnormal liver function) led to a CT scan which led to the diagnosis. Six days ago. And now we are in this position. Mum is sleeping in his room, and none of us, dad included, has had a chance to process this. I can't stop crying, and feeling so overwhelmed with grief. I'm 57 and 4 years ago got clean after a long drug history. So I've isolated myself from everyone I know, cut off my friends, and I have nobody to talk to. What on earth can I do to get through this? I'm sure everyone here relates to the feeling that this is a nightmare, hopefully I will wake up soon. Only I know it's real, I just don't know how I can face this! We have arranged a DNR and we are not asking him to eat or drink if he doesn't want to. We didn't even do a biopsy because we want to protect him from procedures and the doctors agreed he could not withstand any form of treatment at this point. Besides, we don't need a biopsy to know exactly what kind of cancer this is. It's the bastard kind.
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